Wicked Game
by LynnAgate
Summary: Max wakes Alec up in the middle of the night. M. Disclaimer: Dark Angel is owned by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee. For entertainment purposes only.
1. Chapter 1

Alec had never wanted to fall asleep so badly in his entire life.

There'd been numerous times he wanted desperately to stay awake. In Psy-Ops, while they poked and probed and prodded and mind-fucked him repeatedly into submission for days and months on end, he struggled to keep awake just to ensure he would know and remember everything they had done to him.

Even younger, he had feigned sleeping at lights out when the guards came around. He'd wait until their 3AM rounds and sneak out to conduct business until the morning rounds. He made a lot of money running jobs.

He had especially tried to stay awake the night before the Berrisford job. He knew he had loved Rachel, even if he didn't have a name for the feeling, and he knew he'd be eliminated if he didn't follow through. He had spent the night conflicted and trying to think of a way out of it – to give Manticore what it wanted while letting the Berrisfords live.

But two nights ago, in the early hours in which he used to conduct business, in which he sometimes dreamt about the horrible things Psy-Ops had done to him, or about the terrible things he'd done to others, he felt someone climbing into his bed, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Max clawing her way up to him, straddling him in the process, and giving him an intolerably hungry stare he hoped was very much not a dream.

"Max?" he asked, unsure if he believed what he was seeing was a dream.

She seemed to wiggle in place, applying warm pressure to his lap. His mouth fell open in surprise and he held his breath, waiting to see what she was going to do.

She seemed to slink the rest of the way up his body with her head down like a hunting wildcat. She locked her moonlight eyes on his, inched up to his face, and placed her soft lips on his.

Alec brought his hands up to the sides of her arms and pushed at them a little, breaking their kiss. Max sat back against him for a moment and stared into him before removing her shirt.

Alec gave her a slightly concerned look meant to ask what she was doing – or more to the point – why she was doing it, but when that look was met with a heated stare, he felt his heartbeat quicken and his blood rush madly through his veins.

When their lips touched again, it was with purpose and undeniable want, and led to a symphony of breaths and moans.

At Jam Pony the next day, it seemed to be business as usual, with either transgenic not speaking of the previous night's events.

Sketchy sauntered in and approached the dispatch desk where Normal seemed to be in a generous mood, judging by the stacks of packages he was handing to a very tired-looking Alec.

"You look like you were rode hard and put away wet," he commented, thinking his friend probably had some sordid details or sarcastic innuendo in response.

_You have no idea,_ Alec thought. He snuck a furtive glance to Max and turned back to Sketch with a smile. "Yeah, I'm just tired," he said. _Which is true, _he added mentally. No way could he ever tell Sketchy about Max and live to see another day.

"You coming down with something?" Normal asked worriedly. He tried to raise a hand to Alec's forehead, but Alec spun around too quickly. "Just let me know if you need to go home and I'll assign your drops to one of your miscreant coworkers."

"I got it," Alec called over his shoulder as he headed out.

He spent the better part of his day distracted and trying to decide how he should proceed with Max, if at all. He remembered her breath on his neck as she slept, limbs tangled with his. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the exact scent of her hair. He remembered the next morning how he had asked if she would be back, and how breathily she had said she would be back in his dreams. How she had said it, though… it wasn't sarcastic.

This time, it was almost 3AM and he was wide awake, waiting. Waiting to hear the door knob turn; waiting to hear the soft footsteps of a sneak; waiting to feel her as she kneaded her way up his chest, waiting to feel her breath hitch at his throat as she sunk down onto him.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time 7AM rolled around, Alec had slept for a cumulative total of zero hours. Whatever this thing was with Max, he couldn't get her out of his mind, particularly, the wild stare which leant itself so effortlessly to her confidence.

Every time he tossed and turned in his insomnia, he was assaulted with her scent, rubbed deep into his one fluffy pillow and one flat one, dusted over his sheets and under his blanket. It was like sleep was on the surface and he was underwater in an ocean of blissful Max.

He rolled out of bed, landing face down in push-up position, and began his morning routine: one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred pull-ups on the dilapidated doorframe of his bedroom.

Despite the counting, his thoughts still danced aimlessly over the topic of Max. Everything about her seemed like antithesis: she was so controlled all the time at Jam Pony, at Crash, at Logan's, but the night was so animalistic, so uncontrolled, so… instinctual. Her words were so sharp and edged, but her lips were soft and delicious. Her body was fit, tight, but pouring onto him it also seemed soft and liquid.

As his mind transported him back in time, he could think of no better time than the present for a long, cold shower.

It was a cold shower which turned out to be disappointing. After all, how was he supposed to not fantasize about Max when her stare was the only thing constant in his mind? Imagining the water was her tongue making rivulets down his skin had done nothing to ease his anxiety. It was like now that she was in his system, he couldn't think of anything or anyone else.

On his bike ride to work, the weather was icy and brazen, but his skin felt afire with thoughts of kissing her, of it being in contact with hers.

She was driving him crazy with some unknown and involuntary physical and – dare he think it – emotional response to the instinctual animal that was Max Guevara. And the instinctual, animal part of him wanted to rip into her, gain that closeness.

He hoped she wasn't in the building when he arrived. Sure, he was dying to see her, to talk to her, but he was dying to be alone with her again so they could talk or fight or screw – whatever they could do to figure out what was going on with them. And if she was there, he wasn't sure he could restrain from trying to sort it all out immediately, and potentially, embarrassingly.

"As I live and breathe," Normal greeted him over the bustle of the workplace. "Got some really great addresses for you today. Big tippers. Kind of far out, though."

"Great, it's actually just what I need today," he began. "Load me up."

Without much further ado, and without a Max-interruption, Alec was on his way out to sector twelve.

Usually, being alone and riding gave him time to sort things out and figure out a plan of action, but this time, with this woman, he was truly spun. The more he thought about her, the less he wanted her to be just a notch, and the more he wanted to be more than just a notch to her.

_But that's not why she showed up_, his mind supplied as he pedaled harder to crest a small hill.

_Then why was she there? For sex?_

_Really great sex._

The corners of his mouth twitched upward as he remember the way her tongue circled his skin and the way her lips, pink with heat, parted as he nibbled roughly at her skin.

Alec heard the rough sound of his bike tire scraping against loose gravel on the wet ground, and found himself on his side on the pavement. He looked up, realizing he'd just wiped out from thinking – fantasizing – about Max.

He laughed out loud and got to his feet. His shoulder hurt a little – he'd hit the curb with it – but other than that, he was okay.

_This woman's gonna kill me, aggressively or passively._

He rode on, half of his clothes covered in street grime, but with a huge smile on his face.

_Hope it's aggressively._


	3. Chapter 3

On the off chance of a repeat performance, Alec stayed up that night, too. But no Max. He sat on the couch in his living room and iced his shoulder with a bag of snow he'd made minutes prior, outside. The bag was strapped to his shoulder with a red and purple scarf he'd found in the couch.

He very much doubted Brain had brought any women home, and he couldn't remember if Asha had been wearing a scarf that time Max had showed up requesting his assistance with the rogue gossamer.

It didn't matter. The scarf worked, and as the snow performed magic on his bruised shoulder, Alec contemplated his erotic night with Max, haunted by her stare.

Then he heard the lock move in the door knob.

_And now I'm hallucinating._

But when Max's scent wafted over to him, he turned to see the silent intruder sneaking toward him. Caught, with the blue hue of the TV flickering over her like a soft strobe light, she froze in place, letting her jacket slip from her shoulders to land haphazardly on the floor.

Her eyes peppered over him, noticing his illogical ensemble (who wears a scarf indoors with no shirt?), and her lips parted as she took a step forward.

Then another.

Then her head bowed down again, like it had that first night, like she was starving and he was her first meal in weeks.

Unwilling to break the spell which the silence brought on, Alec tried to pull the colorful scarf from his shoulder, with partial success, since it now looked like bicep scarf. The snow pack slowly melted on him, sending two beads of cold condensation down his chest.

Max crossed the distance and stood between him and the TV. Her hair was partially matted from the melting snow outside, and her clothes stuck to her curves in such a way that Alec found himself tracing them mentally with his tongue.

Leaning down, Max placed a hand on the makeshift compress on his injured shoulder and squeezed it, and consequently, squeezed his shoulder.

Alec winced at her deliberately painful squeeze, letting out a grunt, and felt her knees post at either side of his thighs, pressing her cold body to him.

He snapped his eyes open and searched hers. He wanted to ask why she was so cold, but the look with which she fixed him made him fall silent.

She squeezed his injury again, harder, and this time when he growled with the pain, she rocked forward and captured the cry with her mouth.

Her very warm mouth.

She deepened the kiss, rubbing her tongue passionately against his, and – shoulder be damned – he raised his arm and tangled his hand in her hair while his other hand picked the button of her jeans.

Panting with desperation, hardening with every twitch, rock and rub, Alec felt her hands at the back of his neck, keeping his head pinned to her. Alec curled his fingers around the hem of her shirt and pulled up. When the fabric was just below her chin, he began to pull away in an effort to remove the shirt, but Max's very strong jaw clamped on his lower lip and her teeth cut into his skin.

He couldn't help the surprised and pained yawp which escaped him. He'd have been angry at her, too, if it wasn't for the delicate suckling and lapping of her skillful tongue at the site of the new injury.

She backed away and removed her shirt, keeping herself firmly planted in his lap, then stared him down with a satisfied smirk, his blood smeared on her full bottom lip. His erection pulsed from the sight of her, and her pupils dilated further.

_Ah, hell, I'm a soldier. I can take it._

Max put both palms on his chest and stroked upward while he swept both hands up her back and pinched apart the hooks on her bra. He saw a defiant look in her eye and fisted a hand in her hair, pulling roughly, causing her head to jerk back and her chin to thrust out and up.

He mumbled sternly and bent forward to bury his face in her cleavage, nipping at her skin until she grunted in pleasure. Then he teethed her skin a little harder, hoping to ride the line between pleasure and pain.

Exasperated, she let her head fall all the way back and let her eyelids drift shut.


End file.
